Grave Gamer News & Views — bethesda

Fallout 4… LIVES!

No hoax this time, wastelanders. Thanks to leaked casting call documents, the next Fallout has been outed.

If you’re still mending the radiation burns that whole TheSurvivor2299 debacle gave you, your Skully-worthy wall of skepticism is understandable. Here’s the facts: Kotaku was sent the documents in question, which include dialogue scripts and character bios.

Unsurprisingly, the docs are not labeled “FALLOUT 4 BY BETHESDA” in neon red ink. The project is actually referred to as “The Institute.” But evidence stacks to the sky in favor of its true identity; there’s numerous references to locations either shown or named in previous Fallout’s, the casting director for “The Institute” happens to be the same person that cast for Dishonored and Skyrim, and in one monologue, the franchise infamous line “War… War never changes” is uttered.

A lot of info gathered in the documents also pieces together rumblings spanning the year since Fallout 4 rumors began to kick up. You might recall news of Bethesda’s dev team doing some location scouting at Boston’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology some time back. MIT – already having played a small part in Fallout 3, though called, wouldntchaknowit?, The Institute – features as a setting for a mission.

The Commonwealth, which is the name bequeathed to the remnants of Massachusetts in series lore, was also rumored way back as the mused over setting for the next Fallout. The Commonwealth, of course, is name checked along with other series specific settings.

It’s all a pretty goddamn convincing argument for the existence of Fallout 4 (or, rather, whatever it will eventually be called). Of course Bethesda denied to comment on the leak, and until then, I cannot in good journalistic conscience say Fallout 4 is official.

The fuck am I saying? Journalists have no consciences! Fallout 4 is happening, folks. Crack open a dusty Nuka-Cola and celebrate. (In the event this is another great yank on our chain, please place your blame solely on Kotaku. See what I mean about the no conscience bit?)

Doom Co-Creator Leaves id Software for Good

John Carmack, one of the original fab four that founded id Software, has resigned from the company after clocking in 22 years of service.

An outspoken supporter of the Oculus Rift –  do a Google image search for “John Carmack” to view hundreds of pictures of the man shoving the virtual reality headset in people’s faces, his own included – it was previously announced Carmack would assume the role of chief technical officer at Oculus VR. Bethesda Softworks, id’s parent company since 2009, was quick to assure the public that Johnny Boy would still remain on board as a technical adviser.

Given the headline, that obviously fell through. Taking to the internet’s megaphone, Twitter, Carmack explained in earnest that “it just didn’t work out.”

“Probably for the best,” he wrote, “as the divided focus was challenging.”

Alongside industry personality John Romero, Carmack created Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Quake. In other words, some of the most influential video games to ever hit the market, and instrumental in forming the FPS genre as we know it today (sans all the recent military games; unless the military is downplaying the amount of demons, nazis, and nazi-demons it fights on a routine basis).

Presently, John is exiting the studio he founded amid development on the long gestating Doom 4 – a title first announced in 2008. Production on the sequel is said to have run into several hang-up’s, not least of which was a forced rebuild of the entire game and concept once the original build was deemed wholly unsatisfactory (while leaked assets for the game looked promising as hell, apropos to Hell finally being unleashed on Earth, internal sources say the game just wasn’t very Doom).

In a statement from id Software, the studio reports that Carmack’s exit will not negatively affect current projects, his work on the id Tech 5 engine and related technology already having been completed. “We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id’s tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well.”

Dishonored: Game of the Year Edition Fall Bound

Arkane Studios’ surprise 2012 hit, Dishonored – a game that felt like Bioshock and Thief got their drink on and then their freak on – is making a return this Fall with its own Game of the Year bundle.

Dropping from the rooftops onto your PC, PS3, or Xbox 360, the $39.99 package includes the original title and, but of course, every piece of downloadable content produced for the game, including:

• Dunwall City Trials
• The Knife of Dunwall
• The Brigmore Witches
• Void Walker’s Arsenal

Dishonored: GoTY hits retail October 8th (U.S.) and October 11th (Europe).

Interested to know what’s next in store for Arkane? A sequel to Dishonored is being scraped together by Arkane’s French division while, despite their own insistence against it, then followed by the revelation their insistence was bullshit, it seems Bethesda has tapped Arkane Austin to take over Human Head’s Prey 2, ditching the former studio’s turbulent progress on the game in favor of rebooting it from the ground up and poising it as a spiritual sister to System Shock 2.

Information on the sci-fi shooter ends there though as Raphael Colantonio, Arkane’s Creative Director and the man that first dismissed the Prey 2 rumor, has since instructed his team to deny inquires from “press sneak fucks.” Gotta love the industry, man.

QuakeCon 2013 [Dallas, TX]

Bethesda: “We Showed Three Games at E3” and None of Them Were Fallout 4

Skyrim had itself a long reign but the team behind the lauded, fantasy RPG time sink have officially ended DLC support for it and have moved on to their next project.

Given their great success in reintroducing the world to the post-apocalyptic wastelands of the Fallout universe (and reusing a Ron Pearlman soundbite that is just positively burned into gamers’ skulls), it’s no leap in logic for fans to expect Fallout 4 is next up off the bench…

However, Kotaku insists you’re stretching reason extremely thin if you believe Bethesda had a closed doors presentation for the game at last week’s E3.  The rumor began its life in the words of one journalist claiming he saw one surprise Bethesda failed to announce at the most publicized industry event of the year.  Microseconds later, Fallout 4 was name dropped hard enough to break the floor.

As they invariably do, the rumor grew bigger and bolder until certain sites were reporting specific details about the game including which consoles it was coming to (basically everything without a Nintendo logo on it), when it was coming out (October…of 2015), and a completion estimate of 55%.  A teaser trailer clocking in at nearly over half a minute was also purported to be shown; gravelly Pearlman voice-over and all.

If members of the press really got see a forty-five minute presentation on one of the biggest franchises in gaming…Where were all the headlines?  Well, whether Fallout 4 is in production or not, this “Easter egg” E3 presentation probably didn’t happen.  Skeptical?  Here’s what Bethesda shot Kotaku’s way:

“We showed three games at E3 - Wolfenstein: The New Order, The Elder Scrolls Online and The Evil Within. We did not show any of our games behind closed doors.”

I know what you’re thinking.  “We live in a world where they swore to us Steve Carrell wouldn’t be back for The Office finale."  I know.  I know.  But food for thought: for all intents and purposes, E3 serves as a monolithic, flashing billboard meant to advertise to gamers the world over and permeate in consumers’ heads until buyin’ season kicks off.  Why wouldn’t Bethesda want to take advantage of that platform to stir Fallout fans into a frenzy?

[If Fallout 4 is announced next week, the correct answer to that question is, "Because they’re goddamned liars.  When can I pre-order?”]